Humility and Design

Humility is recognizing and acknowledging my total dependence upon the Lord and seeking His will for every decision.

•““A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.”

—Proverbs 29:23

•“For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”—Isaiah 57:15

There is an order to God’s kingdom and way of doing things that the above verses bring out.  Humility is one of the attitudes and character qualities God designed with certain consequences and ramifications that come with applying it or not applying it to our lives.  If there were no designer, humility would not be an issue.  If we somehow created ourselves, and worked by our own design and genius and intelligence, then we may have a right to be proud, and do things the way we want to do them, and put a lot of stock in our own opinions.  But the very fact that we are designed demands humility.  We have to realize that God knows what’s best since we are His creations.  The Bible shows the irony of this in Isaiah 45:9: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?”  Since God made us, it makes sense to humble ourselves before our Creator and figure out what He thinks is the best way for us to live our lives.  There will be no peace or harmony unless we exercise this humility.  It reminds me of something like the story of Frankenstein, in which the designed creation begins doing its own thing against the intent of the designer.  Everything ends up falling apart.  Another example is in the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes when he lets his imagination run away with him.  In one plot line, he ‘makes’ replicas of himself, which end up doing their own thing, and it causes disaster for them.  A car that decides it wants to fly will end up crashing.  The same thing will happen to us, if we become prideful and think we do not need our Designer.  But if we humble ourselves before the only High and Lofty One—the One who lives in eternity, and knows quite a bit more than we do—we will dwell with Him, because then He is able to use us in the way we were designed to be used.  It is important, even for our own well-being, to keep this verse in mind, in closing: Psalm 100:3 “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”  The LORD is God.  We are not.  We have nothing to be prideful about, and every reason to show humility.